Two Novels: Baby/Journey [Hardcover]

Patricia Maclachlan (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 9 and up | Grade Level: 4 and up

Newbery Award Winner Patricia MacLachlan explores the healing powers of language, memory, and love in her acclaimed novels about family ties.

Baby: When 12-year-old Larkin discovers a baby sitting in a basket in her family's driveway, Larkin's family welcomes Sophie into their home. They know that Sophie's mother will return one day and take her from them. But in time, through poetry and song, they come to love this baby as their own—and to face an unspoken loss in their past.

Journey: Journey is 11 the summer his mother leaves him and his sister with their grandparents. He searches family photographs for clues that will explain why his mother left. In the process, the camera becomes a means of finding things Journey's naked eye has missed—like the inevitability of his mother's departure and the love that still binds his family.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers (May 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385734239
• ISBN-13: 978-0385734233
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,628,990 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Patricia MacLachlan was born on the prairie, and to this day carries a small bag of prairie dirt with her wherever she goes to remind her of what she knew first. She is the author of many well-loved novels and picture books, including Sarah, Plain and Tall, winner of the Newbery Medal; its sequels, Skylark and Caleb's Story; and Three Names, illustrated by Mike Wimmer. She lives in western Massachusetts.

In Her Own Words..."One thing I've learned with age and parenting is that life comes in circles. Recently, I was having a bad time writing. I felt disconnected. I had moved to a new home and didn't feel grounded. The house, the land was unfamiliar to me. There was no garden yet. Why had I sold my old comfortable 1793 home? The one with the snakes in the basement, mice everywhere, no closets. I would miss the cold winter air that came in through the electrical sockets."

"I had to go this day to talk to a fourth-grade class, and I banged around the house, complaining. Hard to believe, since I am so mild mannered and pleasant, isn't it? What did I have to say to them? I thought what I always think when I enter a room of children. What do I know?"

"I plunged down the hillside and into town, where a group of fourth-grade children waited for me in the library, freshly scrubbed, expectant. Should I be surprised that what usually happens did so? We began to talk about place, our living landscapes. And I showed them my little bag of prairie dirt from where I was born. Quite simply, we never got off the subject of place. Should I have been so surprised that these young children were so concerned with place, or with the lack of it, their displacement? Five children were foster children, disconnected from their homes. One little boy's house had burned down, everything gone. 'Photographs, too,' he said sadly. Another told me that he was moving the next day to place he'd never been. I turned and saw the librarian, tears coming down her face."

"'You know,' I said. 'Maybe I should take this bag of prairie dirt and toss it into my new yard. I'll never live on the prairie again. I live here now. The two places could mix together that way!' 'No!' cried a boy from the back. 'Maybe the prairie dirt will blow away!' And then a little girl raised her hand. 'I think you should put that prairie dirt in a glass bowl in your window so that when you write you can see it all the time. So you can always see what you knew first.'"

"When I left the library, I went home to write. What You Know First owes much to the children of the Jackson Street School: the ones who love place and will never leave it, the ones who lost everything and have to begin again. I hope for them life comes in circles, too."

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Two classics BABY and JOURNEY appear under one cover, August 7, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Two Novels: Baby/Journey (Hardcover)

Patricia MacLachlan's two classics BABY and JOURNEY appear under one cover, providing two shorter stories of family ties for reader who enjoy warm, caring tales. An abandoned baby involves Larkin and her parents in a new world of hope and lets them heal from loss, while pre-teen Journey is abandoned by his mother and searches for family photos to explain why she left.